Chapter II

Halloween always being his favorite holiday, you would generally find his characters being monsters, witches or aliens of some sort.

Before he could really communicate with words, he would listen to The Danse …

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Every good mother protects her children from nightmares. The world is frightening and full of peril for the innocence of youth.

Mothers instinctually feel what will better protect you from harm, emotionally, psychologically and physically. It is in our nature to convince you that we know best and will protect you from any frontal assault through subtle nurturing and caring.

My mom has always been highly adept and proficient at protection.1

Three little girls peering around the corner of a long dark hallway, at a nineteen inch television set in what feels like the halfway point of a perilous journey across the room to my father’s lap in front of the screen.

Two of us have already successfully made our way off of the elevated trundle beds. Expertly navigating around the center of the step stool that emits a loud creak when the slightest pressure is applied. This obstacle would give our position away to the posted up guard in the kitchen washing dinner dishes.

The oldest of us already present and waiting from her bedroom door in the hallway ready to lead the unit closer to our target.

The strategic plan of attack:

One stays low and plots the course from the hallway to the end of the brick red and goldenrod couch, then hole up in the far corner under the crocheted throw blanket that grandma made. The other two will cover her from a defensive position under a teddy bear blanket between the player piano and the avocado green armchair. We throw hand signals indicating the all clear once sufficient time has elapsed with no visual movement from the guard tower at the kitchen sink.

Our end mission: our father’s yellow chair in front of the television. It is risky, there will be a moment of complete strategic vulnerability in the wide open living space to get there, the two left at the piano will be utterly defenseless.

Our leader already at her next check point between my father’s chair and the wall, under the safety of the colorful crocheted blanket has one finger poked through the large woven yarn holes motioning us forward.

It’s now or never! We advance toward the chair in unison, a tight impenetrable unit, until I am distracted briefly by the bloodcurdling shriek of a terrified woman! My head involuntarily turns and eyes shoot behind me through a gap under the blanket to the kitchen. I bump into my sister, who instinctively drops to the floor.

We both scramble to the side of the chair and furtively glance up in the direction of the soft glowing light. A woman cast in an ominous light, running, covered in slick dark tones of red. Injured and nearly defeated, she has fallen and lets out another piercing scream as her only defense from what ever terror awaits her in the dark.

“Shhhhhh!”

My sister hisses at me. “You’re going to get us caught, stupid!”

Crammed between the chair and an ankle height base board heater that is digging into my leg as I half crouch over it, elbowing my older sister away so I can attempt a seated position. A scratching noise just behind me on the window sill and a sharply taloned foot catches my hand, just as the menacing vampiric monster that was closing in on the doomed and wailing woman leaps from the shadows onto the screen.

Immediately reacting to the threat I feel my body jolt, and falling backwards take the blanket that is covering our heads and a frightened cat off the window sill with me. Scrambling back to my place next to my sibling, wide eyes glued to the bloody, buxomus lady’s fate, a large hand firmly falls to my head, sending me into a near panic.

It is my father’s hand, and somehow he has discovered our presence next to his chair. One by one we squeeze into the small space and anxiously watch as the heroine timidly calls out to her friend, that we all know has just perished along with the boyfriend that was not supposed to have been in her bedroom.

The four of us lean forward as she opens a door, we know the terrifying secret of what lies in wait for her behind it. Suddenly, terrifyingly, the shrill sound of a drum cymbal accompanied with the obligatory jump scare and a black cat’s high pitched yowl as it leaps out of a corner to scare our damsel in distress.(The cat that is not seen before or after this moment again and has zero bearing to the plot). Our hands shoot to our eyes in unison, with one peering through a crack in our fingers.

A disembodied voice shouts from the kitchen doorway causing us all to jump.

“GO TO BED!”

We scream, scramble off the chair and run down the hallway from whence we had come, as the exasperated scolding we had grown accustomed to followed us to our rooms. “You will have nightmares! Richard, don’t let them watch those types of movies!” Followed by the helpless chuckles of my dad.

What she may or may not have been aware of, was these types of movies were carefully searched for and chosen as a democratic consensus prior to our arrival home.

It had become a ritualistic tradition in one of three forms on Saturday afternoons.2

The framework of our favorite tradition was a direct result of the most terrifying real life event of our young lives to this point: the potential loss of my father at age forty to a heart attack.

My dad’s unexpected late night trip a few years prior to the emergency room, still darning the red devil’s makeup from the costume party we attended that night in my aunt’s home, which inexplicably had always been a setting of nightmares for my siblings and I already to this very day.

The result of this eye opening experience was a very active lifestyle coupled with a daily trip to the gym, which we accompanied on weekends to play racketball and swim. We all secretly knew, though, that the real reward was in the video store a block away, with its wall of horror waiting to be discovered.

It always seemed a random happenstance that we would end up at this video store, and that we were all just going to browse the children’s movies and family fun comedies. Until one by one we found ourselves glancing at the array of strange and glorious covers of the horror section. The intriguing titles and creepy artwork, none of which ever seemed to have anything to actually do with the movie it was enticing us to watch.

Our mom always insisting to this very day that these types of movies would either destroy our innocent minds with the evil portrayed in an already malevolent world, or turn us all into psychopathic monsters bent on nightmare fueled mayhem. What she never realized was there was an actual method to this madness for us.

With the exception of a few misguided curiosities on all of our part, my dad was careful not to choose certain kinds of horror. There were unspoken rules to our tradition just as there were rules to survive the night in the cinematic entertainment.

1. We never watched truly gory films

2. We stuck to monster films. Slasher movies and their franchisees came much later in our preteen years.

3. We tried never to watch movies that had a no win ending. Someone needed to be the lone hero.

4. Zombie movies were at our own risk before bedtime.

The fact that my oldest sister had night terrors and frequently woke the other two of us with her adventures in sleepwalking never was attributed to our scary movie fixations.

The drive home with our minimum two movie haul would be fraught with excitement and anxiety as we plotted, negotiated and counter proposed our strategies for staying up past bedtime. These negotiations always ending with our father chuckling, “you know your mother is never going to let you watch these.”

* * *

Three little girls laying high up in elevated trundle beds. Our parents having long ago finished the nightly shores, and the movie we were not allowed to see the ending of. My middle sibling and I taking her bed, while my oldest sibling has taken mine. She says, so that we are all together and I do not get scared. I believe it is really because she has become unsettled, and wishes to share her nightmares with us but does not wish to share a bed.

I lay awake, as I often have, contemplating.

-“Psst. Psst. Hey. Sara.” As I poke her in the ribs.

“What.”

-“Are you awake?”

“I am now. What do you want?”

-“Do you ever wonder what happens when you die?”

“No. Go to sleep.”

-“What about space? Does space make you scared?”

“No.”

-“Are you sure? What if suddenly you were in space, and there was nothing around you at all. You were just floating there in blackness, and you didn’t know if there were monsters, or if it was like being dead, or if you WERE dead and just thought you were in space?”

“Go to sleep Katy, I don’t want to think about that tonight. Katy…?”

* * *

Sleep now a distant memory for my anxiety ridden sister as I sleep soundly beside her. Hours progress until her eyes begin to close again.

A scratching noise, faint at first and then a soft thud. Our oldest sister shoots straight up in her sleep.

“Sara! Did you hear that?!”

-“NO. And neither did you. GO. TO. SLEEP.”

The ringing silence in the room is interrupted by a brief, loud creak of a step stool, and a very still pause.

The air has left the room in this moment, and a whispered swear marks an angry decision to act.

“God. Damn you. Debra.”

At this moment, our oldest sister leaps off of the stool as if in flight and rips open the bedroom door.

She screams as she runs down the hallway, not looking behind her to see her fate, or what is chasing her. All she knows is it is advancing upon her, and it will be a grim ending for her if she is caught.

The living room is dark, she searches the room desperately before her eyes fall to the window showing only the hazy autumn moonlit night. The window is always locked at night, the door next to the window has a broom propped against it as an added warning for any danger that may come knocking. She has only moments to act.

The heavy footsteps thudding down the narrow corridor after her hastens her decision. She advances towards the door, her hand outreached towards the doorknob ready to throw it open and take her chances in the black and ominous night. A contorted shape leaps out of the darkness at the window next to her. It lets out a piercing high pitched noise, followed by a low yowl, its claws fixed to the screen and its yellow eyes flashing for a moment.

The pursuing sister that was the hunter stops in her tracks, and screams.

The door is flung open wide, broom crashing to the floor. The peace in this house now forever vanquished for the remainder of the night, as a black cat strolls into the living room, wide eyed, confused, and hungry.

We had fallen prey to the classic cat jump scare.

My father, in his pajamas, three little girls, disheveled in the small living space, watching as our mother scoops up the cat.

“I told you not to let them watch those damn movies.”

Three little girls watch in shocked terror as a ruined plastic Christmas tree half exposed in torn plastic trash bags goes sailing into the frosty December night, fake chemical snow flock gracefully floating behind it in a trail and settling on the grass below.

All three girls burst into tears surrounding the fallen tree as the sounds of metallic tools being flung into shop walls and audible swearing can be heard as far as the next door neighbor’s house.

Poor father. The man was dead on arrival from the moment he was waylaid by his children at the front door after a long day teaching life skills to less than willing or desirable clients.

“Can we please put up the tree dad? Pleeeeeeeease?”

It would seem a simple enough task, were it not for the fact that in order to find said tree, one must be willing to embark on a quest.

A perilous quest into my father’s shop, which would involve navigating through untold wonders of crates. Crates filled with keepsakes. Until you made it through to the forest of mismatched chairs. Once through this forest, you would then scale a mountain. A mountain of shelves filled with books, crafts and decorations for every holiday known to man, and even some that are unknown or yet to be created.

Once this mountain was breached, you must recite the lord’s prayer and three hail Mary’s that you will discover the correct box in an endless ocean of identical looking boxes, all residing on the top shelves and all mislabeled.

This journey into the uncharted wilds must also be done by the dim light of a single fifty watt bulb, which during this particular adventure, had happened to burn out.

Just when victory was close at hand, my father, holding up one end of a box top in his hand and the point of the tree top in the other. Precariously balanced with one foot on the third shelf and the other on the top of his built in saw bench, milk crate full of tools beneath him, he sees sudden movement and the gleam of large, pupil-less shining gray eyes staring back at him.

He slips one foot off the shelf nearly pulling it all down on top of him as my mother’s old blind cat struggles to find her way down.

With one arm cradling the cat, the other pulling down the large obtrusive box, swearing under his breath, he stops…and sniffs.

The unmistakable oder of urine fills his nostrils. Two hardened animal turds roll out from the tree and bounce along the floor beneath him.

***

Once inside, and after the tears of three children had been dried, we had a family meeting to decide the fate of Christmas.

“We will just go get another tree this weekend.”

Oh, if only it were so simple.

You see, this fake plastic tree was special. It was a short tree that fit perfectly on a small table, reaching exactly as high as our ceiling, which then could showcase my mother’s miniature Christmas village. It was a beloved family village with a train running around the tiny houses. Like her mother’s Christmas village.

“We will just have to find a short tree then.” My father declared, closing the door on the subject for the evening.

***Close of Week 1 of December

We all follow behind my dad like a row of baby ducks as we search every hardware and department store for the perfect size tree. This one is too tall. This one is too small. This one is pink. That one is $50 and looks like a handful of pine needles were glued to a large pipe cleaner in our school arts and crafts class.

Returning home, with a new mission of victory or death, my parents debate the option of a real tree. My mom has never liked them, for a variety of worries.

The needles fall off, it is killing a life, the pets will eat it and become sick, they dry out and become a fire hazard just ask the unfortunate family on King 5 News whose house has burned to the ground for Christmas.

My dad, undaunted and at the end of his tether this far into the game, puts his foot down. We will go find a real tree next weekend.

*** Week 2 of December, Christmas closing in fast…

The four of us scavenging the tree lots like bandits for anything left this close to the big day. (It had never occurred to any of us to drive to the mountains and cut the top of a tree down to size, but at this particular juncture in time it would have been unwise to point that out to my highly agitated dad. It definitely would not have made a story worthy of my family’s overthinking logic.)

We settle on a small, sad looking little tree top. This will have to work. It must work. This journey has reached its end. My dad’s patience certainly had.

We bring the tree home and place it into the tree holder on the table. It leans far to the left, then to the right. It is too small and fragile. Like Charlie Brown and the sad little branch he finds, we place a solitary glass ornament on a branch and the tree leans farther down, as if giving up on life, and topples over to the floor. We watch the ornament roll away to a corner, and all three cast a furtive glance towards my seething father, whose ears are red from a slow angry boil.

Abandon all hope, ye who enters here this Christmas.

A second tree is hurled into the crisp night air, with the same results. A steady stream of swearing and three crying children.

*** T’was the days before Christmas…

One might inquire why we did not pressure wash the tree and be done with the ordeal?

My cunning middle sister thought of just that idea. As we did not own a pressure washer, or know anyone who did, and no one was willing to hand scrub it with a regular hose…

“Dad! Let’s take it to the self car wash!”

***

My dad, a lone hero, is standing in the middle of the Wash N Go, a blanket of fake snow and soap suds surround his feet and coat his shoes as he blasts this pee soaked tree. Abandoned by his own daughter as she cowers in the car avoiding the questioning gazes of the other car wash patrons.

“Get out here and help, you little coward!”

He shouts to her. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut, she vigorously shakes her head, sinks farther down into her seat and locks the door as the remaining yellow snow flock shoots to the ground at his feet.

*** Christmas Eve night…

All is calm, all is bright. We gather around the newly cleaned tree, shining with all its might, proudly donning a new coat of fake snow flocking. The remnants of the two cans it took still visible in the lawn out back.

My mom switches off the train racing around the Christmas village, we gather our wrapped presents (to add to the mountain of soon to be wrapped well into Christmas day presents) and leave the tree in the dark, with only the company of cats as we head to my grandparents home for festivities.

*** Which brings us to the present day…

I stand in my parents’ kitchen, trapped between a counter, a cabinet, a large dog howling, three family members arguing about sleeping arrangements over the top of me. My son frantically making noise to eliminate what he believes to be aggressive conflict, which I attempt to explain over the shouting, howling, keyboard Christmas music, Bob Rivers twisted carols emanating from his cell phone speaker and his flapping arms while my patience wanes, that it is just normal family dysfunction and not an international incident.

I finally solve the dilemma by stating there is no dilemma at all, because I am fully planning on going home to my own bed, as I live only 30 minutes away, and my son can join me there to watch shitty movies and drink hot chocolate. Crisis averted, assurance that feelings are intact without injury.

My father and I exchange a knowing smile. He says he likes my solution. Logic has prevailed.

It will be a short lived victory.

*** Flash forward…

I lay in bed watching It’s a Wonderful Life.

I have always identified with poor George Bailey. Deaf ear, charismatic personality, and a propensity to side line his amazing adventures in order to do what’s right for others to live comfortably while anxiety builds in his soul.

I remember to unwind by practicing a ritual I have learned, and have shared with a friend whenever it is needed most.

I breath in deeply, I hold in every thought and feeling at the top when my lungs can hold no more, and I breathe it all out slowly. Releasing it from my mind. I achieve total peace and I smile.

It really is a wonderful life.

I remember why I hate buying Christmas gifts. Why I dislike receiving a mountain of guilt clutter.

My best gifts are the ability to weave a story, and have it remain fantastic every telling. To sacrifice at times my sanity for my loved ones. From my dad. My propensity towards giving to the people I care about most, my kindness and fortitude in the face of adversity. Pushing people to be better while struggling to be well myself, from my mom.

My sense of karmic justice and faith that things will always work themselves out with the help of a little stillness on my part. A drive to find adventure and make it reality, from my aunt.

My strength of character, spirituality, mediation and attitude to stand up for my values, no matter how much it may hurt to take a step away from a source of imbalance, from my sisters. (Not to mention my skill to debate.)

My ever evolving ability to communicate, and learn patience and a balanced sense of judgment and keen perception. From my son.

Finally, my sense of balance and the knowledge that it doesn’t always have to be so serious. The reminder of the fun, the pleasure, the growth and the peace I achieve from my close network of friends. You know who you are.

It is no secret it has been a shit several years for the majority of us on planet earth.

The gift I have resolved to give back is to keep learning to be a better daughter, a better niece, a better sister, a better aunt, a better mom, a better friend. A better human. No matter how much fate and the Gods may test my patience.

Or anyone else for that matter.

“Drank away the rest of the day
I wonder what my liver'd say
Drink, that's all you can…

Oh, but don't, no, don't sink the boat
That you built, you built to keep afloat”1

My sister cleans and I outline my thoughts. All is calm. All is bright.

For now.

Then the doorbell rings. The spectacle can unfold.

Shouting voices, a dog howls. The first of many in what will soon be a chorus, a cacophony of chaotic audial and visual noise both animal and human, electronic and stereo.

A parade of people, my family, come tumbling through the door like an acrobatic troupe of circus folk carrying boxes of food from their second pilgrimage of last minute grocery and holiday shopping.

It is far more than can reasonably fit into the already over burdened refrigerator. I can see the tension building in my father’s brow with a single bead of sweat as he attempts to mathematically equate how he will condense twenty-seven cubic feet of box food into a filled refrigerator space of three cubic feet by whittling down a block of cheese and reducing the mass of a rotisserie chicken by way of liquidation and osmosis into a mason jar of beans.

As I see my aunt preparing an ice chest, I open my mouth to suggest perhaps we clear out the refrigerator of old food first, and then immediately think better on it.

I see my mother from the corner of my vision on the couch, we make eye contact and I quickly avert my focus back to my work a moment too late. She swoops in to buzz the tower on her first of many attempted fly by’s to force me into eating breakfast. Each attempt more daring and urgent than the last.

“Would you like eggs, Kate?”

“No, mom. I’m good thank you.”

“How about bacon?”

“No thanks. Not hungry.”

“How about waffles? Sausage? Come to the table. It’s getting cold. Last call…”

“I’m writing mom. I’m ok.”

“…YO! KATY! EAT!!!!!”

By the time I finally acquiesce in weary defeat, my father angrily declares he did not make enough as she is already shouting from the garage freezer that she will thaw out more food to cook and happily give up her breakfast to motherhood martyrdom.

I know better than to attempt to wade over to the dining room table lest I be swallowed up by the tidal wave of unwrapped presents that my mother made us all swear we would not buy. It seems I am the only one that has adhered to this rule yet again, after the entire month of December I have rejected every advance made upon me to make out a Christmas list.

She begins the decades long tradition of frantically wrapping until midnight of Christmas morning the mountainous volume of presents to add to the already mountainous volume of wrapped presents under the tree that my aunt is still decorating. Many a Christmas of years past, when there were grandparents still in the mix, has seen this tradition last until the late hours of Christmas day.

I back out of the room and become trapped between an uncomfortably claustrophobic space of kitchen counter, cabinets and very large dog while at least three members of my family funnel into the same space to argue.

My son begins frantically playing Twisted Christmas Carols on youtube and shouting for us to listen over the raised debate about the logistics of where everyone will sleep once my sister, brother in law, and three year old nephew arrive with their new large Siberian husky to add to the chaos.

The current channels of communication for my older sister and I are through her husband or our other sister via texted armistice pictures of my nephew.

I have lost count on the amount of hills the two of us have sworn to die on before speaking again in the last several years, but nothing can bring a family back together like the close proximity of a forced festive holiday with rules of engagement already laid out.

Before the anticipated arrival and the elaborate game of shuffling vehicles in my parents twisted rock wall driveway, and before my mom begins her world apology tour that there wasn’t more presents to give us this year and promising she will do better. My dad is carrying a glass of alcohol spiked eggnog and tripping his way over large totes of decorations and a dog to his piano to add yet another layer: a loud, Casio Keyboard style organ version of Frosted Window Panes, (one of my most hated carols) and swearing under his breath this is the last Christmas he will partake in.

All who are currently present then stop our holiday hustle, and share a secret smile. A bond that will never dissipate, fondly remembering the fateful year that will stay in the annals of family legend:

The year my father saved Christmas.

As early as I can remember, I see myself laying on the floor, high pile brown shag carpet beneath me. I am listening intently to Mozart’s Confutatis, Requiem Mass in D, K. 626 while watching Amadeus, my favorite movie at the time.

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On this dark hot night with its star filled sky not even time gets to dictate my destiny. I am exactly where I want to be.

For the briefest moment I reflect on time. The changes undergone in only a week’s time, a month’s time, then a year. Time is a commodity that is not abundant the longer you have moved through it. Changes progress more rapidly and the lessons punch a lot harder and more vigorously.

Hot humidity turns to warm rain soaking my hair and cleansing my mind, and washes away every thought in an instant. The peace I didn’t know I needed attained from this welcome shower and the clarity of letting all thoughts recede like the tide of crashing waves in front of me, until only one of any importance to me remained…

I will find a coconut.

The birth of this thought and reason for the quest is of little pertinence to explain at this moment.

Any who might say that finding a coconut on a tropical island would be as easy as finding a grain of sand on a beach and likely just as uneventful would probably not benefit from this story.

It is far less about the locating, obtaining or consuming of the coconut and everything to do with the journey that said coconut created.

***

I find myself on a boat entirely filled with strangers watching the parasail that is 750 feet in the air trailing behind us attached to an Australian couple of fellow travelers. The new bride is afraid, and would much rather be shopping, but wants desperately to show her new husband that she is adventurous and he has chosen his life partner well. The husband is looking forward to helping his new wife overcome a fear and demonstrate to her he will protect her from any harm. I survey the serene faces of the remaining six adventure seekers waiting their turn. Their briefly subdued and quiet conversations with their respective companions is overshadowed by the boisterous voices of the tour hosts and their chosen soundtrack for this outing. All three men have transplanted their lives to this island from California, each after surfing the waves and deciding never to return to mainland life.

I am so fully engaged with the three men conversing about the surf and the music that will become the soundtrack to this memory, and exchanging new musical discoveries that they nearly forget to pull the parasail down, and when the boat takes a sharper turn than intended and then a bump over its own wake there is a brief but audibly high pitched shriek from the new bride before she is lowered down to safety.

I have chosen to be second from last in turn, not because I am afraid, but because I do not want this moment to end so quickly. I ask my hosts and fellow tourists where the best places are to obtain a coconut?

Hoping to provoke an impromptu conversation from any of my quiet companions, I am instead met with blank stares. Then a host tells me I can get a great Mai Tai served in a whole coconut at Duke’s.

No, I politely state, I am not looking for a cocktail in a coconut. Although I will store this information for later. I need a whole coconut that I can mail home.

I am met again by silent gazes before a quiet lady in the back of the boat informs me that the tourist shops off the beach carry coconuts, and the conversations shift back to quiet exclusion in a decided finality of our verbal engagement.

Soaring high above the water, the beaches and the streets lined with pleasure seeking tourists, I faintly hear the music I chose on the boat pulling me across the landscape. I am able to see every palm tree lining the beach walk, and more clusters in the surrounding parks. I may find a good coconut source today on my own.

I walk the parks searching the ground for those who have fallen, or a bent tree that I might be able to reasonably climb on.

The very few visible coconuts are green and firmly affixed to very tall palms well out of danger of being harvested by a woman of my small stature.

My wanderings lead me to a swimsuit and clothing store with a sweet faced girl named Leilani who eagerly helps me shop. She shyly tells me she likes a suit and shirt I have picked but would never wear herself on account of being self conscious of her weight. She informs me and her attractive male co-workers she plans to see a boy she likes, her brother’s friend. She is very nervous that he will never like her because of her looks and being his friend’s annoying sister. She says he doesn’t ever like to be tied down to any one girl, and would likely pick someone prettier.

I tell her to go for it! She is young and has a very beautiful spirit and face. He will likely love her confidence and say yes! If he is dismissive, move on to the next contestant that will appreciate her confidence. Her male co-workers enthusiastically agree. She gives me a doubting and furtive glance and asks me how I could know the outcome would not be devastating? That there could possibly be anyone else that would be so perfect to her? Or that might even like her at all?

I give her the best possible answer I have:“Because, while you have never been 41 years old before, I have been 20 years old. That has given me 21 years longer to experience all kinds of devastation, disappointment, humiliation and rejection, and to learn beyond any of my own limiting beliefs that there will always be another good wave to carry you to shore. As long as you are willing to stand back up.”

I ask Leilani where I may find a coconut to mail home. She informs me that there are none to be had on this side of the island, as the city meticulously ensures none will drop on an unsuspecting tourist with deep pockets. But I may find some on the leeward side by the falls. I hope she takes a chance and rides it out.

***

Hiking through an exotic botanical garden I feel confident that I will surely find an unattended coconut somewhere along my path. The oppressive tropical heat beating down on my face and neck through a fragrant hibiscus perfumed breeze. After an hour long hike I come to a clear waterfall that beckons me to come in. I happily oblige.

While the water pours over my face and hair, I spot through an endless prism of vibrant colored rainbows two local men knocking a coconut and a couple of unidentifiable fruits from trees towards the edge of the falls.

Bingo! I hurriedly depart my water paradise and fixedly gaze upon the goal ahead of me. My search is over!

As I come to the tree and reach my hand up for a perfect looking coconut, a voice behind me gently informs me I do not want to continue.

It is illegal to pick any vegetation, fruit or coconuts in the park. The locals are not technically exempt. But rules are not strongly enforced for them. They are for foreign visitors.

Disappointed, but not entirely dissuaded, I ask the ranger where I may find a coconut that I can mail home?

He informs that the only places to get a coconut legally would be to purchase from the local fruit trucks on the north shore, or the Polynesian Center. It is not legal to transport on a plane, and that they will have to mail it for me at the stand.

***

Zip lining always has a way of forming camaraderie within its groups of thrill seekers. You start out as strangers, and end with nicknames based on the stories shared while waiting to soar over the vast landscapes together.

I learn that Peaches and Utah, an extremely tall man with a very short wife, are from Sacramento, and she is a habitual rule breaker that speaks her mind and likes to bet. She bets Utah if she makes it across the line faster, upside down, they have to have another child. Dallas and Red met at a restaurant he managed, he pursued her heavily until she finally gave in to a date. They save all they can to travel everywhere now that their last kid is grown. Raptor and T-Rex have been married a few years, and T-Rex, a small, shy girl adds to Peaches bet that if she makes it across first that Raptor must give her their first child, much to his discomfort. I ask them all where I may find a coconut to mail home? They tell me the gift shop would have them.

As I enter the gift shop, I ask the clerk where I might find a coconut? She points to a pile of plastic coconut cups with dinosaurs printed on the front.

***

I meet a couple in the resort bar late at night. They say they are siblings that own a successful tech business, and are on vacation. The woman says she is Emily, and the man will not mention his name. He tells me his sister lives with a man in California, he pays her handsomely to watch his dogs. He has an unnerving manner, and seems to be slightly inappropriate with his closeness to his sister. He says she used to live on the island. I ask her where to find a coconut to mail home? He tells me there is one in his condo he just bought. I do not follow them when the bar closes, and instead speak with three local resort staff drinking beers near the beach entrance.

We discuss jazz and blues and creole cooking, as one is from Louisiana originally. They tell me that the couple are trying to scam me, possibly hurt me, that these types are frequent here, and to steer clear. I thank them, and come up short once more on my quest for the ever elusive coconut.

***

Just after sunrise nearly every morning, I am carrying an awkwardly sized surf board over my head to a local beach. I have learned it needs to be early, to avoid the crowds and burning the bottoms of my feet on the scorchingly hot sand. I bid my pleasant good mornings to Robert and Kai, the two men I rent my surf and paddle boards from, and vowed that today would be the day that I managed to stay on top of my surfboard after a week of wiping out.

They inform me that the surf boards are all booked out today, and suggest I head down the road to Uncle Bryon’s van to get a lesson.

Uncle Bryon is a half caucasian, half Hawaiian older gentleman who has seventeen grandkids and lived all his seventy-five years on the island. He has given surf lessons to celebrities and has a golf pro grandson. He is a charismatic story teller. I like him right away, although as we talk the day grows longer and hotter, and the crashing waves beckon me come forward.

Uncle Bryon sends a sixteen year old boy named Nicoa out into the waves with me to teach me surfing technique. I have spent much time waiting for what I view as seemingly perfect waves and riding them safely lying down.

He tells me that I have very good stance, my knees are bent and foot position is good from my time learning to dance. The reasons I fall are less to do with balance or more practice, and more that I need to employ patience popping up, not be so cautious doing so, and not anticipate wiping out. Most importantly, always look in the direction that I wish to go. Never down at the wave, and never behind me.

Nicoa leads me into the middle of the waves, among a smaller crowd of surfers. He tells me not to worry about those around me. Not to try to catch a perfect wave with too many competitors on it and fear falling off. I’ll know which one is mine. He tells me don’t jump off if others get in my path, it is their job to move out of my wave. Just flow and ride it out. All will be well.

After several great waves carry me safely kneeling down, we decide the next one is my wave. I paddle with the tide and feel the crystal clear blue water rise beneath me, lifting me up. I feel myself kneeling, then moving upwards into a standing position. I see a dark shape in the water next to me. For a moment I am afraid. It looks as though a human has fallen in the water and is floating lifeless. In an instant a sea turtle’s head pops out of the water and rides this perfect wave with me to the edge of the shore.

He has not a care in the world and pays me little heed, but I choose to believe he was flowing with me exactly when I needed the encouragement, when I rode out the wave meant for me.

On the shore I ask Nicoa where to find a coconut. He tells me the Beach Bus is a stand his friend works at that sells fresh young coconuts.

As we talk, I notice my son surfing with another instructor. For a moment I am concerned when I lose sight of him. He has never encountered waves like these before, and has a propensity towards panic when he cannot learn a task fast enough. Nicoa tells me not to worry, and then we see him riding the wave to the shoreline. He tells me although he is a teacher, he is not patient with his little brother, and can hold him back when he surfs. Sometimes the answer is to let him catch his own waves with someone that is not as attached.

***

The Beach Bus has a refrigerator full of fresh young coconuts. I ask them to wrap one up for me. I am feeling very accomplished with my find, that I have completed what I set out to do. I ask the man in the bus to tell me how I can mail it to the mainland and am met with a stare. “We do not do that, houlie.” He laughs in response to my inquiry.

I take my prized coconut back to my family who have lived local for thirty years. They inform me that this island no longer allows tourists to ship any produce of any kind, due to export laws.

My perfect coconut tastes delicious on our shrimp at dinner.

***

My last day of adventure, and a reasonable person would have given up. I am not a reasonable person.

I drag along a weary sister to one more stand. The sun is close to setting over the mountains, creating a reddish hue over the reddish fields of earth.

A local elderly lady has hand painted coconuts for sale. They are dried and hollowed, and shipping and traveling approved.

For a moment I hold this coconut in my hands, examining the child like turtle painted on its husk. It isn’t a perfect coconut, and I wasn’t able to procure it exactly the way I had envisioned. As I placed it in the mail to be sent to its intended new home, I smile at the adventures this coconut was a part of with me, even though it had not been there with me the entire time.

I send it now to be with someone else. Someone that I hope will accept it for what it is, an imperfect coconut that I have invested care and an amazing and short adventure with, and have a fond story of their own when they look upon it.

Sometimes the perfect coconuts are not what you expect them to be, and you do not receive them when or how you would like to. But they will be an amazing adventure, even if you cannot keep them, especially if you can love them for what they are.

Often times a perfect wave will have too many people waiting to ride it, and you will be afraid of wiping out. Be patient, and not too cautious, balance your approach and always point your head in the direction you wish to go. Always get back on the board and stand tall, ride the wave and enjoy the ride.

Connect with as many new humans as you can, do not allow any fears to knock you off your board. Be discerning of those who wish you harm, and do not follow them. Listen to those who wish to protect you, and make your own informed decisions so you are not held back from your wave.

Continue the adventure with those who are happy to ride the waves with you, and try not to assume that they need to be your expected human at all.

Always stay on your quest for a good coconut, no matter how daunting the endeavor, or how many times you encounter disappointment. It will always lead to wonderful adventures.

Ordinary moments and conversations can lead to extraordinary paths of life and thought.

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I will play along. At least he acknowledged he knew who I was. This childhood adversary dealt no small series of incidents that faded into the cacophony of other adolescent incidents to be easily forgotten by either person.

This was a multi-sibling feud that spanned the decades through all of our upbringing, beginning with my older sister’s first day of kindergarten getting socked in the nose by his older brother. An incident that affected all of her trust issues with men into this very day.

Life takes the most interesting turns when you allow yourself to be open to every path it offers. I note the slight surrealism I feel while observing the flow of conversations. I am fully experiencing such an enjoyable moment in the sun. The awkward and hesitant pleasantries of what people have been doing with their lives. The hints of how they really feel, so on the verge of saying what they really mean but always stopping short.

Polite and subdued conversations while eating hotdogs and drinking hard seltzers. This is what reconnecting really is.

I learn that my childhood bully has bought a large and initially very run down old house with several outbuildings and a pool. He bought it because the 70’s style cabana with a jacuzzi bath also had a urinal and the worst shag carpet. I learn that in three years time he has fully renovated the large house and cabana himself, and is currently renovating the third building into a guest house for his brothers with a pool table and a loft. I learn that he is a carpenter. His girlfriend is a delightfully pleasant person that takes her career as a senior person at Amazon very seriously. She doesn’t like to be disturbed while working on her computer in this large and formerly run down home that they hunted for. She has an easy going demeanor after her serious work has finished and a quick sense of humor very similar to my own. They have a shared family.

He has a full office of musical equipment that he rarely uses anymore, his focus has been on work, he loves to produce sound and has ideas of making fusion reggae, rock and hip hop. Someday. He does not seem to enjoy interruptions in his routine, and is very uncomfortable if I bring up any older memories of us as adolescents, or inquire about anything not pertaining to his work on his home. He makes great use of space. Takes a lot of pride in making sure every square inch on their property has a functional purpose for his family, is very tidy and that everything is filled with a good experience. He is extremely health conscious, health of his body and mind. He works long hours at his paying job, and then fills his free time working more.

He asks questions about the marriage of the mutual old high school friend that I arrived at his doorstep with. The friend who is a traveler, very sensitive and kind and always finds ways to bridge gaps with twenty year old connections that most other people would neglect to do. I can tell that relationships mean a lot to him, he is concerned and protective about our mutual friend’s happiness and suspicious of my presence. They exchange a strained conversation about trying to make things work, carefully navigating around the discussion of why or any feelings that may arise from it and then immediately shift back to casual man talk; more about his work on the roof, or landscaping the hydrangeas next to the bar. There is always a solution to an equation and any problem not solvable is to be avoided at all costs.

I listen to the detailed pride they both have with the results of his labor of love in this renovation endeavor, and how he will eventually sell this house and buy a better one that he will not need to work on in the future, even though I know that is a lie. People that calculate this much are always working on a distraction. Ways to contribute something worthy to provide other people happiness and comfort, politely and firmly refusing any offered help, anything other than discuss what is going on in their own head.

I remember the egg that was cracked on my head, the paintball that was shot at him. The time he burned my hair with his Bic lighter while his friends around us laughed. The time I broke his skateboard for calling me names. The water balloon wars filled with substances that were not water that I often found myself on the wrong side of. The snowball fights that turned into real fights. The rock in a snowball one fateful winter that made me partially blind. The endless bus rides of torment from first grade to that first year of high school when he discovered music, partying and sports and girls he did not want to mentally torture. When we ran in the same social circles but still never acknowledged each other beyond a slight nod.

I catch small parts of the dialogue about his father dying. I am not meant to hear this conversation. I hear the pain in his voice while he talks about him, the father that abused all of them badly. His mother who dealt with it as best she could, and had an endless parade of men in their home after she couldn’t. His brother is newly divorced for the second time, and has brought a girl I used to know, who is married, to the impromptu soirée. She is hiding in the bathroom talking to her husband who is not supposed to know where she is and presumes she is still running errands. She sheepishly and apologetically explains to me during a corn hole game, though I did not ask, that she has no problems at all with her husband. That they get along very well and he is a good man that spends too much time at work and on his own hobbies and she would never dare to talk to him about it because he would never understand.

There are several friends and family members of various age who have not bothered to introduce themselves or look up from their phones. They drink and laugh and swim in the pool, use the sauna and play guitar. Ride mopeds and longboards, play games and pose for multiple pictures to make other people jealous.

I ride my bully’s mopeds and swim in his pool. I laugh with everyone around me and thoroughly enjoy this moment in time. He cooks me hotdogs and avoids any discussion with me other than to pleasantly but curtly answer my questions. He mentions his girlfriend wants to get married, they have been a couple for several years and basically already are. He uncomfortably dances around the subject siting that the economy is not quite right, maybe after he achieves a few more goals on the house and a few other uncontrollable factors. This is a man who has planned much in his life and worked far too hard to provide comfort and happiness to all of his people to trust that someone will not take it all away and leave him without it the moment he capitulates, no matter how much they demonstrate they love him. There is safety in the illusion of an escape route.

We humans are such a curious species. Always longing to be truly understood, and forever working hard to ensure that we never are.

I am standing near the gazebo he built from reclaimed wood from his cabana, playing games and laughing. I see him start to speak, so softly I almost do not hear. He tells me it is good to see me. He apologizes that he does not remember much of being a kid, there is too much going on in his head all the time. He says he is sorry again for not remembering, but I know in this moment that he does. I accept and we do not speak after.

His jovial partner stands next to him while the rest of us socialize into the evening sun.

I observe them watching us, and they share a laugh, an inside joke only for them. They touch their foreheads against each other and rest there for just a moment. It is a wonderful moment that I am not meant to be a part of but grateful I could share anyway. He is more at peace with his person now. I know privately that out of everyone attending this occasion, he is the one who should worry the least of losing all he worked for to this person, and I silently hope he will open himself up and trust a bit more. If he will allow himself to be more understood and enjoy the comfort his labor has provided.

I find myself for the briefest moment in this light hearted occasion, all of these wonderfully fun distractions that have all the components and hallmarks of a memorable day, wishing to leave and have a very good conversation about everything and nothing of substance all at once with someone who would understand why.

As sun sets, we all start the process of pleasantries and saying our farewells. She gives me hydrangeas and I hear myself engage in the polite rituals of vague promises to hang out with various people again and an awkward hug.

He walks toward me from the fence line at the edge of his yard. I extend my hand in a sincere gesture and thank him for having me, that it was great to catch up. He does not bother with the awkward disingenuous hug, or even a handshake and continues to walk right by me. I hear her express shock and a slight scolding. In this moment I am not offended. I even a little bit respect how this is delivered. There is no room for interpretation, no half in or out.

I accept the unspoken message that we will not be seeing each other again. I am alright with being an unperson. Which is a shame, because we have a lot more in common than either of us ever knew.

I welcome him silently to a club that he may or may not already be aware of. In this moment, we accept and understand each other better than the longest friendships might, in things that are left completely unsaid.

Everyday humans, each with their own highly important agendas. Such a bittersweet symphony.

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